There and Back

Marks Hall was a Jacobean country house some 2 miles (3.2 km) north of Coggeshall in Essex, but by 1949, the mansion was neglected and said to be in a dangerous state, so was demolished in 1950.  Forward to 2019 and Marks Hall Estate is now the site of 300 acres of Gardens and Arboretum - a great place at all times of year to wander and explore. In 1163 the manor house and estate of Markshall were granted to the Markshall family after being confiscated from Hugh de Essex. They descended in the Markshall family until the estate was sold to John Cole, who renovated parts of the house. It was then sold to Edward Deraugh in 1581. In 1605 Robert Honywood purchased Marks Hall from Deraugh's grandson, William, pulled down part of the old timber-framed house and built a new brick building in 1609. It then descended through several more families until Thomas Phillips Price (1844-1932), a Welsh landowner, mine owner, and Liberal politician, purchased Marks Hall, then a mansion and deer ...

A visit to two interesting places today. One being Dunwich Heath and the other the village of Theberton. The village of Theberton has a grim past relating to the First World War, which can be perhaps glimpsed from the village sign? The burnt out airship. (sorry, not the best picture). On the night of 17th June 1917, on the edge of this village, German Zeppelin airship L48 was brought down, with the agonising death of 16 of its crew. Finding yourself on fire and falling through the air cannot fill you with much hope of your survival, but remarkably some of the crew did survive, to be rounded up by the local constable, who I like to imagine arriving on his bike. The dead were buried in the graveyard extension here, before being moved to a military cemetery 60 years later, but their memorial remains. In the porch there is part of the superstructure of the giant airship, incongruous in a glass case. The church of St Peter has one of Suffolk's prettiest round towers, a...